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Herschel reflected in Planck mirror

Planck will offer vastly improved performance in measuring the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation compared to balloon-borne and ground-based experiments and will exceed the performance of any previous space-based instruments of this kind.

The spacecraft revolves about its Sun-pointing axis once per minute to stabilise its attitude. Planck will use this stabilisation spin to scan the sky, observing at least 95% of it through two separate observation periods in a span of 15 months.